What is it like to spend an afternoon interviewing Dennis Hopper? There are so many questions: is the scariest character in cinema Frank Booth from "Blue Velvet"? Why is he so obsessed by James Dean? What are these rumours that he's a Republican? What really happened on the sets of "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Apocalypse Now"? How has Hopper turned into the come-back kid? How did he know Elvis? What drives him obsessively to paint, take photographs, direct and act in films, put on exhibitions, rabidly defend his reputation? The problem with interviewing Hollywood's favourite psychotic is that there's too much to ask. Where do you start?
I start at his home full of pop art on a grungy street in Venice, California. He shows me his collection and talks of how the locals say of their neighbour "there's a crazy guy in there, he was in "Blue Velvet" ".
He's detached, cautious, wary of this 大象传媒 guy. We drive to Hollywood, up Sunset Boulevard, the street on which he mooched with Dean and Elvis in the late 50s and early 60s. Born in Dodge City Kansas, this country boy whose talent was noticed as soon as he hit the West coast looks like he's been here forever.
We stop at the gothic Chateau Marmont hotel where Greta Garbo, Douglas Fairbanks, Billy Wilder, Orson Welles, Paul Newman, James Dean, and Hopper himself all lived. Hopper points out bungalow number four, where Belushi died from a speedball overdose. Hopper takes out a massive cigar, he sweats under the TV lights, he's beginning to warm up...
You can catch Dennis Hopper on Scene by Scene on Monday 20th August, 大象传媒2, 11.30pm.
Read more about Hollywood's legendary baddie.
